There was no feedback from anyone complaining or praising the service. If there was, service/schedules would have been adjusted. MNR was more customer friendly back then, or so it would seem. It was an experement which the MTA/CDOT signed off on. The market just wasn't there, straight answer. As then MNR president Don Nelson put it about direct Waterbury/GCT service: "We threw a party...and nobody came". That just about sums it up.

EXO trains also stops to cut-over. But that ends forever on March 6 when they will close the Mt Royal tunnel to heavy rail trains. They will then repalce all F59's and the ALP45DP's with more fuel efficient engines. I read that ion their website today.

The GP38 was a road switcher lacking dynamic brake blisters. They still had to shave back the top of the battery box on the long hood when they discovered it would not clear in the Fall of 1975.

Why spend crazy capital and operating money for meh ridership when they can get you to do most of the work and drive to Ronkonkoma? I suspect that from an agency standpoint, they see how the ridership works out east of Patchogue and Speonk on the Montauk, and despite Riverhead's population increases, it's easier to do nothing than to spend the money to service that area correctly. It's going to take a change in management to see that area as valuable and to run it more like how Metro North runs Southeast/Wassaic.

Unless maintenance is THAT expensive, it's cheaper to just buy an adequate amount of diesel locomotives and coaches. There's a reason why electrification to Port Jefferson and Patchogue is always discussed but almost never electrification to Poughkeepsie.

Only if you use strong charging current. What do you think an alternator in a car does, every day?

And how many battery-powered electric cars use lead-acid batteries outside golf carts, really? Baker Electric used nickel-iron batteries designed by Thomas Edison, and some of their racing cars used lead-zinc batteries.

The problem is that the third rail as used on the LIRR preceded the catenary as used on the PRR by several decades and by that time, so much of the LIRR was electrified that it would have been prohibitively expensive to redo the entire railroad especially since much of the PRR was done during the depression with federal money.

I hadnít known about that and if that were the case then why didnít the LIRR continue with it instead of getting rid of it and using 3rd rail for its entire electrified territory.? There must have been a reason why the RR thought that 3rd rail was superior to catenary at the time.